167: Keys for Multimillion-Dollar Practices

But then I also think there's the looming unknown of where is the economy going? What's going to happen? How can I be preparing my practice now, My team now? What do I need to be doing to get scrappy?

Hi, I'm Emmett Scott, and just like you, I've had my ups and downs in the dental industry, but times are changing. The DEO has built a map of how to succeed in one of the most challenging industries to navigate. On this show, we talk to dental industry leaders, solve problems, and get you the answers you need to face these challenging times and thrive. Welcome to DE Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Now let's get started. Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of DEO Growth Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and today I'm with Kyra Dent. That's right, Kyra Dent, CEO and founder of the Dental A team. And Kira, thank you so much for being on the show. You know, this is our first time meeting but like, we know all the same people and I'm excited to dig into what you all do and how you help these practices get to the next level. You're the founder of the Dental A team, consults over 100 dental practices nationwide. You tackle the in person dental office coaching, which is so helpful because oftentimes, you know, we're giving the concepts, we're providing the leadership ideas, we're giving them some cadences, but they just need that extra step where it's like, can someone come in here and and really help us? I'm curious, Kira, what are you seeing right now in the marketplace as like the biggest issues people are running into?

Well, Emmett, thank you for letting me be here. I've got to just like step back a second before I answer that and be like, massive fan girl. Because I, I'm the jelly to D E O. Like D O's peanut butter. You guys like set the stage. You have it all. I've been fangirling over D E O. I just think you guys are such an incredible organization and I feel so, like, blessed and giddy. You guys were just on our podcast and so I just want to say thank you for having me. And you're right. I'm like, your guys is jelly to your peanut butter. We go do, I'm the team member to the doctor. We go do that. Like, hands on tactical. Like, I'm the person who goes into your practice and it's like, hey, my team is like super frustrated with X, Y, Z. I'm like, cool. Like, let me just play magic Barry here and put all the pieces together so your team can operate really seamlessly. Boots on the ground. So super giddy and excited to be here and things that I'm seeing right now. I'm sure you guys have heard about it. I think it's the dental assistant shortage for sure is one hot topic right now. Second, I think people are kind of just cranky, which I'm grateful you guys are having a good mindset Reset. I think people had Covid then like on your guys summit, what you guys are coming up with, you're just kind of getting frustrated with that. But then I also think there's the looming unknown of where is the economy going? What's going to happen? How can I be preparing my practice now? My team now what do I need to be doing to get scrappy? And so I think those kind of from a high level to a tactical level to a mindset level are a lot of the things I'm seeing, which I'm confident you guys are seeing a very similar trend in the DEO world as well.

Yeah, I mean, give us a little bit of your background for our listeners. I mean, you've been in dental for a while. I mean, I mean, you've got the last name Dent, so it's been a while.

Yeah, I do. I know Dent is such a. People always ask, like, I get that. It's when people realize I'm in dentistry, it's that quick. Like, are you, Are you, Are you sure? Is that a stage name? No, it's not a stage name. It just took me three fiances to get that last name. Like, that's a true story. We won't go into it. The first fiance, like, let's be real. Benninghoff. That's way too long. Bad SEO. I had to like, keep working down the line, so. So.

But I've been all about the marketing. All about the marketing.

Always guys, I'm like, pick the best name for your business. It's all about the marketing. Be high on that insurance list. Be like, just, you know, have a great name. It's all about that marketing. Or he just was a really cool guy and it happened to fit. I did try, though. Emma, we'll just go a little rabbit hole. His name is Jason Dent, which technically means tooth healer. And I tried hard. I met him pre. He went to pharmacy school. And I begged and pleaded and he said, just go to dental school like your name literally means. But he opted for pharmacy and I opted for dental. So here we are now. But yeah, I actually, I Did start out as a dental assistant. True story. I just wanted to wear scrubs and I thought learn the whole body and be a nurse or learn the mouth and be a dental assistant. You can call me lazy or efficient. I tell my offices that like you want to find the most efficient way, ask your laziest person like they will tell you how to do it. And I decided let's do dental assisting. So that was my passion. That's where it was, that's where it started. So dental assisting and then office manager, treatment coordinator, scheduler, biller, regional manager. I actually worked at Midwestern University's dental college while Jason went to pharmacy school. That's actually how I know a mutual friend. You and I just found out we have and then after that I actually went and I was a co owner with a student from Midwestern. We started a practice in Colorado. That's how I learned about DSOs and how that umbrella works as a non dental, non dentist owning practices. And we took our first practice from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months and opened our second location. And so I was multi practice drinking from a fire hose. Almost got into lots of like lawsuits and I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know how to hire people. I and I feel that education taught me more than anything I've ever learned. And so I thought oh my gosh, if I could help this one student. Midwestern cranks out a lot of dentists. I thought I need to be a resource for dentists out there, help them and lo and behold, here we are, dental aid team and and why we're here today. So just a huge passion to remind people that I think we're personally in the best industry you could ever be a part of. Dentistry I think is the way we can change lives. And if I can help take that tactical piece out of it, make it easy, make dentistry fun again for those dentists who went to dentistry because they love having hand skills and being able to be that creative person. But as we all know, the business and the team side was really not taught to them. But I know firsthand working at Midwestern and if I can take that and make that easier, make it more systematized and efficient on the ground boots and in practice, let's do that and make dentistry fun again.

Okay, that's awesome. We're going to talk about how you move a practice from 500,000 to 2 million. I am going to do a little promo right here which is if you have a personality like Kira I love what you said. A little lawsuits, a little this, a little that. Trying to scale and grow. This is why you go to DEO summit. Of course, you probably didn't have DEO summit back then.

I wish I would have been there in a second.

Totally. June 8th through the 10th, San Diego. This is the kind of stuff we talk about. You have the ambition, but frankly we're all ignorant and we don't actually realize all the business stuff. And frankly, you get out of dental school and you realize, great, I know the clinical and that's about 10% of the activity I'm doing all day. Right. The other 90% is what you're talking about, Kara, that you guys help with. Right. It's all the people stuff, all these humans. You know, I love what one of my entrepreneur friends said. He said, you know, this would be really easy if we could get rid of the customers and the team members.

Amen.

Those are the only problems in the practices. Right. So, yes. So how do you take a practice that's 500,000 to 2 million? Like if you were going to take us, I don't know, top three steps that got you there. What were some key components that you said? Okay, number one, we got to get what? Better alignment around this, better clarity around this. Tactical things. I mean, it wasn't cutting supply costs.

It surely was not. And it's a really like sexy title to throw out there. It's really fun on a resume builder to say 5,500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months. Like that's with a brand new grad straight out of dental school. And not to mention in those nine months we had actually taken our practice and we, our building was actually being torn down and a new dental office was being rebuilt there. We had about a 12 month window. So I also had to move a 5,000 patient base, build a new practice and move an entire patient base during this time as well, which is pure psychotic. Emmett. Like, I don't know. I think that there is beauty in being naive sometimes. I think, because I don'. I think if I would have known everything, I don't know if I would have jumped as quickly. Knowing what I know now though, some of the pieces that were key is one, I will say the dentist I worked for was absolutely incredible. She, she really took her dental school training and she made sure she was massively equipped with multiple opportunities. So we went to maxi implant course. We were placing implants like we did prf. So we had a higher skillset. Also, I will say I was In Colorado. And just so you guys know, for. For point of reference, because a lot of people think in order to hit those high numbers, you have to also have a large practice. We had a five op practice. So just to be very honest, like it was small. We had outgrown it, but we.

I did some facility constraints that you ended up solving which helped with the volume.

No, unfortunately. So we took it from five ops to five ops. It was a like total rookie mistake. Emmett. If I could have done it again, I would have done it a lot differently. But.

But by the way, there's the DEO gross that you should go to.

And if it would have been around, I would have been your first student. I would have been like begging you, Emma. I would have like, I would have paid my way plus everyone else's way and then worked for you for free for the next five years. Like it would have changed my life. So that's why we on the dental aid team are promoting the EO Summit as well. Because I think it's just a great place for you guys to go and done it though.

We've all done it. I'm just giving you a hard time.

Save the rookies. Save yourself from Kira's problems. Don't also get involved with tax credit. Like, gosh, like the tax people came in and they. They're not humorous, Emmett. Like they don't have a sense of humor. I tried to make her laugh and that was a big like, no, no. So with that said, I think the things that we did were we got real scrappy in our space and we had a very extensive clinical suite. And I tell a lot of offices. Like I ran three doctor columns that were full production because we also had ED Is in Colorado. So I had a big surgery case. Crown crown. So she would go in numb. Prep prep. Ed is. Would take over the crowns. We would go do the implant placement. And then I was running two columns of hygiene as well. So maximizing and utilizing our space. I think we were very talented in. And then we also hired an associate and expanded since we only had five hours, five ops to expand. And so we were running from seven to seven minimum, five days a week. So utilizing that, that was something that I would feel is clutch and key. And I think when people hear that 500,000 to 2.4 million, it's like that picture of the ballerina where everyone wants to have the beautiful ballet foot, but when you look at the other side, it's ripped, it's bloody, it's cut up. And I mean to get to that amount, I feel like I did sacrifice my marriage, sacrifice my health, sacrificed my life. Again. Reasons that I'm such a huge fan girl of D E O because I think it's just you can do it and you don't have to do it that way. But I feel like key success points to go from 500,000 to 2.4 million. Things that were clutch were having an expanded clinical skill set for sure we could do bigger procedures, we could do implants, we could do ortho things that really did expand. And then second, I'm not trying to be egotistical whatsoever. Really good treatment coordinator. So that's actually why she hired me. And I could close cases left and right. So I was closing 50 to $80,000 cases. Credit card pay in full same. And I think people don't realize how important it is to have somebody who really is talented to close cases. If it can't be that dentist or if you're not confident speaking of those amounts to have somebody who is a good ying to yang not afraid to talk money is able to understand insurance able to under like I didn't guys when you're in those bigger cases, even smaller cases. Insurance to me is a coupon. It's not the driving force of cases. And so I think that this dentist was really, really. I think she just was very intuitive to know for her to grow and for her to massively expand, she needed to think outside the box, bring in someone who wasn't afraid of money. And then honestly, the third piece, Emmett, if I'm being completely honest, we worked our freaking booties off like I was up at 2am 10pm making sure that things were running. We were constantly running, constantly innovating. And then we also just had a really great reputation. So when you're running and scaling that quickly, I think you can often forget about your reputation. You can forget about quality. And those are two key pieces that we were adamant we would not go. But because we had that kind of. I mean we were listening to Drake at 6am in the morning. It was a very hip that fit for downtown Denver. And I think that vibe, that almost disruption within the industry is really what helped us grow exponentially so fast. Would I recommend most people do it? No, it was psychotic so I wouldn't do it again.

But yeah, but there's some really great truth bombs that I think I want to just make sure we tag here number one. Something I've said is a DSO can never grow beyond the clinical vision. Maybe if I was being More tactical. It can never grow bigger than the clinical capability. I've seen before where we've done it, others have done it. They take a treatment coordinator, put them through a lot of training, got them like, awesome. And guess what it's like to sell a bunch of capability that your dentist doesn't have. It's right.

It will. It will kill a treatment coordinator faster than anything else. Because I can sell to. I made a joke the other day, Emmett. It's kind of like a little. A little off color, but, like, hilarious. I said, I can sell snow to a snowman. And then I'm like, wait, is that technically cannibalism? Because I didn't mean it that way. Like, but as a treatment coordinator, someone who can sell, someone who loves to sell, Like, I love to give patients the best freaking dentistry of the world. Like, that is what my greatest passion is. But if I don't believe or I'm not confident in that dentist or I know they can't do it, you will cut off a good TC faster than anything else. Because I don't want to sell bad dentistry to this patient knowing full well my doctor can actually deliver.

It's like, don't go hunt for good pay per click marketing if you have really bad front desk because you're just pouring money and just phone calls that aren't going to get answered. And I'm not talking about the individual, I'm talking about the process. If you're worried about your treatment coordination not going well, first place to look is, is my clinical capability able to consume what they're already selling? But let's say that, let's say that I am. Let's say I'm an ambitious clinician and I'm looking at my treatment coordinator and, you know, look, I'm not a great business owner. Before, she was the one doing my paper filing. And I just thought, well, let's just have her do treatment coordination. And she's like, what's my training? And my answer is go do treatment coordination. Right?

It always happens. It's okay, guys.

So how would you solve something like that? I mean, are you assessing individuals and saying, do I even have the right person here? And then if, if so, like, what would those maybe attributes look like? And then can you turn someone into Akira? Or how far can I get them 70%? I probably don't have to get them 100. I probably can't. But can I get them 70%, 80%? Like, where's the tipping point where you really start seeing success?

I think it's a really good question you asked, Emmett, and the answer is I think that there's two sides to it and that's something I'm very passionate about. I'm here to train the teams up to give the clinical experience. I literally sit here and listen to people's treatment plans and give them pointers of how to make it better. We have. Like, that's why I made the podcast because I feel like there was really nothing out there to level up team members to learn these skills and also help doctors have a way to navigate these conversations with team members. Very pro. That's why it's dental. A team like dentist and team, but a lot of emphasis on team to help them really just grow and excel. But the answer with treatment coordinating is I've tried this. And same thing with schedulers. I think that there is foundational pieces that really do make good people do. I think a lot of people can be trained up a hundred percent and I will never, ever. Consultants get a bad rap. Emmett, you know this. You're in the same boat I am that. We come in, we fire people, we say they're not the right. And that's never been my motto. It's never been the way I want to do it. And I know you guys are very similar. Like, let's give them the training resources. But to be completely frank, if someone like I have trained my person on my team, I've literally trained someone who is not a salesperson to become sales. However, that's not her nature. She doesn't love it. She's not.

She just hates life and she can

do it because she loves me and she will find a way to be pretty good. But I'm like, a true TC is a freaking hungry animal that's going to go slay the day. And that's an innate piece. Like, I'm going to wake up at 2am, I'm going to go to bed at 10pm I've got this insatiable desire to win. That's who you want, is your tc. But so, yes, can we train them? Yes, can we do it? But I'm like, don't take your person who's a biller and say, go be a tc. We have foundationally different personalities, different desires. I'm not going to be a good biller, guys. Can I do it? Yes. But am I going to want to sit there and like, do the same? I only want to go after the money and win the case. I don't want to go through every single line item detail. And so I think to your question, Emmett, to answer simply, yes, you can train, yes, there are pieces there. But look for the true, I would say, identity makeup of what makes a good scheduler, what makes a good dental assistant, what makes a good treatment coordinator. And find people who are already kind of wired to want to do that, want to sell, want to present cases, because that's going to make it easier for you and that person. It's like right person, right seed, as cliche as that is. But I think it's more than that. It's, it's core foundation of who that person just is meant to be. Let them be that person. Don't try and make, I would say it's like, don't make a cheetah into a cat. Like, are they the same thing? Yes, but I don't want to cheetah as my house cat. Don't try and make this person who's driven be something they're not or someone who's not driven into something that they really weren't meant.

You know, I love about salespeople, they always have the best metaphors. We're just awesome at metaphors. I think you did a good job of just really going tactical. And I'll take it one step further on what it means getting people in the right seat on the bus. I think, and I see this at DEO all the time, those who are really excelling are less concerned about skills, more concerned about culture, fit, and is it the right personality? Because if they have someone like you or if they have someone else on their team, skills are easy to train compared to. I need you to change your entire personality. I need you to want to do something you've never wanted to do before. It's just not going to happen. So I think, I think what ends up happening as you get more mature in the space, you're not constrained to hiring within dental. Right. You go over to a retail environment, you're over in Target, you're in Nordstrom's, whatever it is, and you're like, that person should come work for me.

Amen. You're handing out the business card in the drive thru window. AKA Kira Dent in Colorado. I was like, this girl's awesome. I'm handing out my business card. She called for the most Chick Fil

A hires ever at your desk because

they're great guys, they know how to do it. Starbucks do. I don't even drink coffee. I just want to go be a barista to learn their process of how they do it. But I agree with you. I think it's more but I will say I think the, I would say it's a hallucination that we actually think it's easier to train from dental as opposed to training for, for talent. Because I think I've got this hallucination in this illusion that's actually a delusion that if I hire somebody who already has a skill set and they've come from dental, they know it. But I'm like, they actually like they might, you might get lucky. But I remember someone, I don't even remember who I was talking to. I think it was on a podcast, which is why I love to podcast. You meet really cool people and learn cool things. But they said Kira, the great people actually aren't applying for jobs here and there. You get lucky because maybe they've switched states or maybe something's happened. But most of the time the A players, the rock stars, the ones who are really crushing it, they either get recruited or they know people and they move along or they're with a practice that they absolutely love. They're not usually applying on Indeed. And I look at my like there's one job that I applied for on Indeed. And it's when I moved from Utah to Arizona and I was looking for a job, one job I applied for, the rest recruited, the rest found come through referrals.

This is why every HR team now is becoming a marketing team and they're hiring the same people that our marketing team hired. They're starting to say who are you using for pay for per click? What are you doing for your advertising? Right. They're asking the CMOs this because any good HR recruiting team is becoming a marketing team.

Amen. And so I think that there is this. I think it's a fallacy and I think it's don't, don't get swept into the trap of thinking that it's easy to just bring people in from dentistry. Like Emmett said, I really do feel expand, figure out who the right profile is. Personality wise. Dentistry is actually really simple. It's really easy to train. But I think we think it's hard because we don't want to put forth the effort to create systems. But it's like once that's built, you can plug and play right personality all day long and it's much easier. You're not fighting against it. So I always say in offices like if you feel like it's a struggle, it shouldn't be hard and there's an easier way to do it.

Oh man, you just came up with I'm gonna call it, like, the training trap. Okay. Or like the training myth. And that is if I hire someone in dental, then I don't have to train them. What I really did was I hired someone probably that is almost impossible to train for. Right. Because I basically hired a skill set of, like, you know, dental and that I didn't hire the personality. The real thing I want to do is hire the personality and then train the skill.

Yes. Yeah, I think it's brilliant. And it's funny because also, I do think to team members who are listening or to offices sometimes. Like, I know for me, I wanted to be an office manager because I felt that was climbing the dental hierarchical ladder. Bottom line is, guys, can I be a great manager? The answer is yes. But do I actually love to be a manager? Hard pass H double hockey sticks. No. Like, I don't enjoy that. I don't like the details. I don't like having to follow up with people. I don't actually like holding people accountable. Will I do it because I've got this massive desire to win? Yes. But, like, am I actually right person, right seat for that? The answer is no. I don't think I was a great office manager. And when I actually look back at that Colorado practice to. I hope that they have listened to the podcast. I have tried to endlessly apologize because I wasn't a good manager. I was put into a position without being the true best person for it. And I have an office right now. They got a treatment coordinator who wants to be an office manager because she feels that that's her next step. And I'm like, sister, we can put you in that spot, but I will promise you, you will fail. You will be miserable, and you're not going to love it. And where you actually are best is in this TC role because you're. You were bred to be a treatment coordinator. And so I think that there also is a myth for team members of, I'm not excelling, I'm not expanding. I can't grow beyond that. When I'm like, actually, you can. Let's find a way to have a TC actually be able to expand, because that's really where they're meant to be. They're just usually looking for a higher pay raise, but they don't actually want that job. They want to stay here.

So sometimes, can we talk about that personality? Because, you know, when I look at accounting, teams, billing, they have a certain personality. When I look at it, they get to have a certain personality. Right. All. All of this. Anytime you're with sales and marketing. So there's two types of people in every company. You're trying to get rock stars. Rock stars are very happy with where they're at and they're crushing it. And then they're shooting stars and they're constantly trying to climb. It feels like with marketing individuals who are good. I see this with hygienists who are great that are marketing oriented, good treatment coordinators, they're constantly trying to climb. Right? So they're shooting stars. And I think you just nailed something that they should really think about, which is in that climb. Don't climb up the wrong mountain. Right. Don't go up the wrong part of the org chart. As you, as you look at these treatment coordinators and their motivation, a lot of them are going to be motivated by some kind of equity or commission or some kind of win. Do I know a little bit that I have the right person if they're asking for some of that stuff? Because I, I see dentists all the time. They get really irritated with hygiene. She's like, she is my best hygienist. She sells more treatment than anyone and she's always asking me for more stuff, you know, And I'm like, yeah, because that's who she is. That's what she, that's, that's how you're getting that from the patient. She's just turning around and using it on you. You know, it's like it's the same person. Is that just true? Is that another like, skill set that we as an owner have to know is, you know, how do I lead someone with that much ambition? That can be intimidating. So sometimes I do want the biller to be the treatment coordinator because they're just kind of steady Eddie and they're not going to come back and ask me for anything. They're also not going to sell really well, but they won't ask me. I get that rock star person. They're selling and they're also asking and I'm feeling intimidated. Like, I don't know, is there, is there techniques or ways that I can bring them in as a partner? Like, hey, I can't pay that much because, like, I actually wouldn't make any money, you know, something like that.

Yeah.

What's your thoughts on that?

So I think it's, I do think for those shooting stars, they do need to know kind of where there, there is a line, right? Like, you know, and I think being honest and open with your team and saying, like, this is where we're going to Tap out. However, if you can figure out a way to generate more revenue for the company ethically and grow yourself, I'm all ears. And I'm willing to listen because then they know the parameters. Like, I think the thing we fail oftentimes is we don't give those parameters. So they're constantly gnawing at you and you're like, listen, slow down. Like, give me a break. But you don't want to slow that racehorse down. You don't want to slow that ambition down because that's why they're your rock star, that's why you love them. But rock stars are really hard to train and manage because they don't want to be in a box. That's why they're so good at selling, that's why they're so good at producing. They're just these great people that want to just drive. So give them the parameters of where they're going to be, but then again, give them the creative playground too. Hey, if you can think of a different way to generate more, I'm all ears. And let's come up with a comp plan that's good for you most of the time with your drivers. They're going to do really well if bonus upon performance. But make it to where it's something that's actually a bonus or going above and beyond. Don't just have it be like, if we hit goal high five, you get it. These people will literally find ways, innovate, create, and they're going to generate for you. But don't try and put them in a box.

Just keep hanging the meat a little higher and higher for better and better opportunities. That's a win win.

You know, have them help create it because then they're bought into it. It's not you moving the carrot constantly on them. And just be honest. I tell every office it's a minimum of a 10% growth unless you're in massive growth mode. That way people don't feel like you're constantly moving the target, you've set the expectations clear, they know the rules of the game, they're going to play within and they're going to keep finding different ways to push the envelope and embrace that, love that. But that doesn't mean you constantly have to give raises. Put those parameters there and it's going to save you and them a lot of stress as well.

I'll tell you a friction point. I think dentist owners made a big mistake and they drove a wedge between their best performers, especially hygienists and great Dental assistants in them, and that is, they didn't want to share their p. L. They were so nervous that if everyone knew how much they were making. And because of that, that nine. I love that. That nine just kept coming. You need to figure out a way that you feel comfortable it could be on a consolidated basis that you can share your p and l with your team. They need to understand, hey, we've got to hit this minimum profit margin for, like, this to be worth it to me, for me to have enough cash flow to be able to do the working capital of payroll and everything else. And by the way, you guys keep asking for raises every year, you know, especially this last year. So I have to have that growth component, too, or, you know, all I'm going to have is a shrinking margin business.

Yes.

The maturity to be able to do that with the team. I have found that if you can get there and people are so nervous, you know, what happens if they see that I'm making a million dollars? You know what happens if they see I'm making $200,000? Man, you got to get. They're making up the number anyway. They think it's, like, revenue minus their salary and a little more, and you're taking everything else home, you know, so it's just better to show they're going to be like, we do on our own personal finances. Holy smokes. Where'd all our money go? You know, it's like, oh, wow, that stuff really adds up. Anyway, I just.

I think I do go ahead.

Well, I just think we've got to be more open with our teams to get to the next level.

So I'm going to say an amen. Hallelujah. Yes, I'm the same way. And I'm also going to quickly flip my hat because I think one of my favorite perspectives I have is, guys, I am a team member. Like, I come as a team member. I'm that person who is your team representing your team right now. And I just want to, like, clarify for you as a team member, I actually never looked to be like, oh, my gosh, Dr. Scott over here is making so much money. I thought, I want Dr. Scott to be freaking successful, because then I have a job. I literally, as a dental assistant every night told my dentist, I'm like, hey, be careful, because if you break your hands, I don't have a job. Every night. I'm like, don't go fall. Don't go running. Like, I need a job tomorrow. So I think, think I actually think it's, again, a Hallucination in this, like, story we're telling ourselves as business owners. And it's crazy weird because I have shifted over to business owner, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. I don't want my team to see this and feel weird about it. We are making up stories, and we're. We're actually fighting against demons that our team usually isn't even thinking about. So the p. L. Is a leveling field for you and for your team. It's helping you feel confident that they now know what it costs to run a business. And guess what? I will put this out there for all teams. You guys should record this. Snippet it say, this is coming up from a team member. Teams want their doctors to be very successful because when my doctor's successful, they're not stressed about finances. They're able to grow, and I have more stability within my job. Just like when I was a kid in a family, I had seven siblings. My parents I knew. I remember when I was real little, there were three siblings at the time. And my mom said, hey, guys, we have to get creative with dinner. Even as a kid, I knew something was off, because when have we ever had to get creative with dinner? So as a little, tiny child, I knew when things were rocky and unstable within my parents, my parents never lost their job. I feel like I was raised very well. I feel like I had a very blessed life. But I'm just pointing out, like, even children are perceptible of when finances are not secure within a household. And so for your team, they feel that too. So teams actually want their doctors to be successful. They want them to be thriving. I want every office to be very, very, very profitable and successful because doctors not stress, and they can make better decisions for the team and for the patient rather than coming from scarcity and fear.

How many teams are, like, get there early, and they watch the doctor come in, and then they're like, code blue. Looks like he's had a fight with his wife today. Let's all get ready for this. You know, hey, looks like she's a little stressed out on payroll today. Are we prepared for this? Right?

All the time. We do have that. Guys, the team is actually all talking about you, whether you know they are or not. We all have our stories about you. We all have our illusions about you, all those different things. Why not pull that piano out? Why not have the honest conversations? And what I say is, if team members are judging you, they're not your right team member, because you want team members who Back you, you want team members who are going to push this forward because they believe in you and they're part of your mission, because your mission's their mission and they're totally bought into it. And if not, and if they're going to say that you're making way too much money, guess what? They're either going to rise up or they're going to find a different office that fits them. And both are okay options.

Yeah, totally love that. Love that. I think that has been such an intimidation point to get strong team members and it's created so much friction. And if, if we can kind of mature up and grow up, I think we can see dentists starting to attract. Attract much more powerful individuals. That is much more impactful to the patients. Because it does not help patients to have weak team members. No, that just means they're not getting the treatment done that they need to get done. Right. That just means that oral health is worse. So, anyway, awesome stuff. There's something else that I wanted to ask you. So back when you did your practice, you talked about really leveraging the expanded use dental assistance. Has that changed? Today with all the economics that has happened, is expanded capability still something that, like, when you go into a practice, you're like, because most dentists are terrible at figuring out how to use it, right?

Yes.

Is it. Is it because the economics are changing and it's not as good as it used to be, or is it. No, we still just suck at knowing how to get the process and systems done.

I think, like, okay, let's just be very fair. Dentists are such amazing people. You're also usually introverted people, which is why you can work in a very small space for a long amount of time. And then you're usually perfectionists as well, which is why you can literally sit there and drop that box a couple millimeters and then worry about that. Like, not even a whole half a millimeter to get it perfect. So we've got that type of a person again, let's go back to clinical makeup. And then we're going to ask you to trust some kind of trained assistant who went through like a three day course to learn to place fillings, to do your fillings with your name stamped upon it. And what I say is, this is a great time. Like, let's go back to this training myth idea. If you build the process and the system and you take the time. One of my favorite lines is choose your hard. Like, is it harder to sit there and train your assistant? So that way you Literally have many dentists for you working under you that you're not having to pay as dentists, but can be amazing. I had some literal Ettas who were better than the dentist. They placed better fillings because they were doing fillings all day long. They got better at occlusion, they got better at seal. Like their margins were more beautiful than the dentist who had gone to dental school because all they did were fillings. So is it harder to train them? Yes, you're going to have some sensitivity. Yes, you're going to have bites. We literally did trainings with our edits. We sat there with little type it ons and we had blue and red paper and we would do up and down and we do excursive movement and show them how the different pieces are and adjust those fillings to make them absolutely perfect. If you will take, let's say it's even 40 hours, let me go pretty aggressive and say 40 hours, you are going to then free up the next 12 months where they'll do all of your fillings for you. To me, 40 hours compared to 12 months of all fillings. You, you take all those fillings and add a hourly amount to it. I don't think it's. I think it's the not wanting to give up control, Emmett, is what I think is the fear not wanting to have a patient have a bad experience. And I think the secondary is a lot of dentists are afraid, just like team members are, just like any person is. But wait, Emma, if I give up my fillings, is there even going to be a need for me as a dentist here? Am I even going to be needed? What else?

Clinical capability. If you're worried about something the dental assistant in your state can do, you're probably not pushing your clinical capability to the next level.

Amen. Yes. Because if there are people can do this who aren't paid as much as you are, you are not working to the pay level that you are are capable of doing. So let's level you up and allow them to be amazing at it. Have them be great at crowns, have them be great at fillings, and then you can take on implants and sinus lifts and all these different cool things that we can't do. But let them do it and train them to be amazing and even better than you are. And don't be afraid of your ego being a little hurt in that moment or losing a little bit of identity. Slough that off, lose that and allow yourself to grow into something more because you're capable of that and me as a team member, I want you spinning that drill at your highest capacity and allowing your team members to do the same. You're more fulfilled and they are as well.

What I love is I think we have broken down how you move from half a million to two and a half million. I think you can do it today and this economy, I think you can do it in the past and the other economies. And just to be super clear, like, I love that this is not like, just buy these pay per click words and you'll get a bunch of patients in and, you know, just tell your team to do this. It takes real effort on your own personal development side to make sure your clinical capability is big enough to be able to do things that are actually going to drive that practice. It takes enough maturity to be able to have the right conversations around your P and L. It takes enough maturity to say, I'm going to hire for culture and I'm going to train the heck out of these individuals on skill. Right. You have to be able to have big personalities around you because the patients are going to respond to the energy of the office. They don't know anything about clinical. They do know exactly how they felt. If they felt taken care of, then they're like, that practice was amazing. They don't think in millimeters. Right. They think in emotions. So when you get the treatment coordinator, you get the front desk that are really nailed on this stuff. You do an entire summit around this stuff though, right?

We do.

So tell us a little bit about. I mean, you have one coming up.

When is it we do April 28th and 29th. And ours is virtual. I love that you guys have yours in person because I think networking is truly the best part about in person for us. Again, a little bit different of a perspective. I know as a business owner how expensive it is to fly an entire team somewhere. The cost of that and getting a whole team bought into something. And that's the hardest thing as an owner to go get pumped up and excited and then bring it back to your team. Definitely doable. But we do ours in. In your office. So your whole team is a part of this. And that's honestly where I geek out and get excited. Because we are doing the secrets of the multimillion dollar practice this year. So what I just broke down. But even more in depth, but from a whole team's perspective. So breaking down case acceptance, but truly training your tc, your hygienist, your dental assistant, your doctor, how that whole piece works together. Live hands on in your practice. So it's going to be epic. Emma, It's. It's so fun.

I looked at your lineup. I love, like, I don't know all of them, but I know a lot of them and I love. They're entertaining, they're awesome. They know their stuff. I mean, do you want to talk about a couple of them? Because people might know them and like, oh, yeah, I want to go see them.

No, for sure. And I also just want to change. Like Summit, I feel, is such a fun word. However, I feel it's a little bit like, it doesn't exactly explain how it is. I would say, like, think of this as a team retreat or a team workshop where we're literally like infusing energy and excitement. We purposely have a lot.

They're going to walk away with some real tactical skills too, that they can improve on Monday. Yeah.

Yes. So. And that's what it is. So we're literally going through all these different pieces of the secrets of multimillion dollar practices, giving them to you. You guys get swag boxes in your office. Don't worry. There's some dollar dollar bills flying to you guys. But we actually have Josh Scott, owner of Studio 88, who's going to talk about what multimillion dollar practices do differently in their marketing. He sees hundreds of them, so he's coming in for that. Paul Goodman, dental nacho himself. He's coming in and talking about how to get the fit associate. So finding, inspiring and training a multimillion dollar associate, which I think is like

the acronym king, by the way.

He is.

Yeah.

I mean, he definitely puts my acronyms to shame sometimes. I'm like, dang, Paul, that was great. Could you copyright for me? We also have Zeke Kirch, who I think is not as well known. He's the CEO of Swell, which is a fantastic Google review company, which I'm sure you guys, I know a lot of your people know him. But the reason I'm bringing Zeke in, he's a little nervous and I feel Zeke is never in the forefront. Zeke is billionaire bus and he has grown multiple successful businesses. And he doesn't think like your standard CEO. He doesn't think in typical terms. And I want him to come in and actually share what he personally does, what his secrets are of how he's been able to make billion businesses. And then we're also bringing in four practices just like you. They're literally dentists just like you who sit in your shoes. They're not these great speakers. Some of them are super Shy one of them, I'm, I will not say his name but he told me, he said Kira. I actually am taking speech lessons and like speech coaching to make sure that I can be super impactful for your audience. But I wanted four real life offices who have truly taken their practices from where they are to where they are today. Multiple, multiple million dollar practices. And it's not the dollar amount, it's the mindset, the lifestyle and then the profitability that they're coming in. So it's full team. They're bringing their teams on, they're sharing. It's going to be all the things, all the fun. And it's April 28th and 29th virtual with your practice. A ton of fun.

And of course, where do you go to sign up? Yeah.

So you head on over to thedental a team dot com. There's a summit right there. You guys just sign up for it. And because you guys are listening to this, we are actually doing a deo. So if you type in DEO dental, you guys will actually get 400 off that team summit ticket. So it is nine CE credits for your entire team. But 400 off that team ticket, I think it's going to be like 500 bucks for your entire team. I don't care if you've got five team members or 50 team members, same price. I want your team there. I want it fun, interactive, engaging. So DEO dental, you guys will get 400 off that team ticket.

Carrot. It's awesome. Excited to like go deep. Be real. This is what DEO Growth secrets is about. Is none of this like high level fluff. Good luck. I hope you solve it. But I didn't really tell you how I did it. This is like tactical level. Eat your vegetables. It's painful sometimes, sometimes you need to get a speech coach. By the way, that dentist is doing that for this presentation. But it's going to crush it it on the practice side, right? Just everything, every little thing on personal development, all those invest. You know, people are always talking about stocks, bonds, I, I did financial planning for 10 years. The best investment is always in yourself. Like any personal, whether it's clinical capability or just personal development pays a million times more anyway. We'll have to do a spreadsheet on that sometime. But I can show you.

I would love it.

And for what you're doing, I, you know the next best investment is invest in the team. Because if they have personal development, like what would be if I had, If I had 10 grand and I got a 10 return. Right. And so you know, what is that, a thousand bucks? If I take ten grand and I invest it in my team, can they make me more than a thousand dollars? Right. That's the power of that. I mean, especially a treatment coordinator. Holy smokes. So much opportunity there. So, anyway, thank you so much for being on any, like, final things. I mean, thank you for just laying in these truth prompts. You're over on DEO Growth Secrets Facebook page, so if you have more questions for Kira, layer them in there. This has been awesome. We'll have to do this again.

Agreed.

Anything else for the audience?

I just want to say thank you. And I just want to remind you guys, it doesn't have to be hard. I think that that's my ending mission. Like, it doesn't have to be hard. There are like, success leaves clues. So why not learn from the best people? Why not? Truly? And just like Emma said, this is why I'm so a geek with your guys's company. I feel like we're such good peanut butter and jelly because I got so sick of people not telling me, like, what exactly did you do? Like, I want ABCD so then I can go replicate. And so that's what it's all about. And that's why we're bringing people on and that's why we're bringing this together. Because I think, honestly, it doesn't have to be hard. You can level up yourself, you can level up your team, and it's very easy to do. It's a no brainer to do. You just have to make the decision. And I, I think my favorite quote of all that I'll leave you guys with is you're always one decision away from a completely different life. Are you willing to take it?

Awesome. Hey, if you like things hard, if you like wasting money, don't go to Kira's event. Don't come to our summit, June 8th through 10th in San Diego. But if you want to kind of skip over all the stuff.

Whoa.

That Kira and I did, my camera just like, I just dropped too much truth bomb there. If you want to skip over that, come to our summits. You'll love it. Hey, thank you so much, Kira, for being on. I appreciate it. And everyone who's listening, come over to our Facebook page. And until next time, keep smiling. Thank you for listening to deo's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Continue the conversation on our Facebook group and meet other dental leaders. Get questions answered and the strategies you need to succeed. Plus, we have some free resources for you right there on the Facebook page. Remember, you're not alone. Let's do this together. Join DEO's Growth Secrets Group on Facebook. And until next time, keep smiling.